Regulators have rejected requests from business groups that want to make it tougher for the state to add common chemicals to its list of toxic substances under Proposition 65.
The California Chamber of Commerce, the California Manufacturers and Technology Association and other Sacramento business groups wanted expert panels to approve additions to the list.
As it is now, the list can be expanded any time a substance is declared hazardous, by state officials or any other authority, whether national or international. Any addition is subject to a hearing.
Proposition 65, or the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, requires facilities that use substances on the list of toxic chemicals to post signs on their premises, send out notices to neighbors and place ads in newspapers stating that chemicals found to be hazardous to human health are used on the premises.
These postings must take place within one year after a chemical is added to the list.
Besides the expense and paperwork burden placed on businesses, these postings often are signals to plaintiffs’ lawyers looking to sue employers over alleged Proposition 65 violations.
For years, regulators at the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment have added chemicals to the list once those chemicals have been determined to be hazardous and discussed in a hearing.
Manufacturers have long questioned this listing process.
They want the listing to be approved by expert panels or outside bodies deemed “authoritative.”
But in response to inquiries from manufacturers, the assessment office now has put forward a “preliminary regulation” that would formalize its ad hoc way of listing chemicals as toxic.
If this regulation wins approval sometime next year, dozens of chemicals now under review could end up on the Proposition 65 list, including lead chromate and titanium dioxide, which is used to make the white printing surface of paper.
Other chemicals being considered are found in everyday items such as alcoholic beverages, artificial sweeteners, wood dust and talcum powder.
“Such a far reaching change in the original intent and implementation of Prop. 65 creates enormous uncertainty for California businesses that already have difficulty competing in this environment,” said Mike Rogge, environmental lobbyist with the California Manufacturers and Technology Association.
The association and other business groups are considering legal action to block this regulation should it be enacted, Rogge said.
Sam Delson, spokesman for the assessment office, said that there would be no rush to list chemicals once this regulation is approved.
The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment “will continue to add and delete chemicals as new research is published whether or not we adopt the regulation,” Delson said. “The purpose of the possible regulation is to explain a process that is already in place.”
For more information, log onto the office’s Web site at: oehha.ca.gov/prop65.html or onto the California Manufacturers and Technology Association’s Web site at www.cmta.net.
Workers’ Comp Rates
Companies throughout California are about to see their workers’ compensation rates go up, and not just because of insurance premiums.
Last month’s state budget deal included a 10% increase in a fee to fund the operation of the state’s workers’ compensation office and to create a fund to be operated by the Division of Occupational Safety and Health. The fee is tacked on to insurance premium bills.
Separately, the administrators of the state’s Workers’ Compensation Insurance Fraud Fund approved a 2.5% increase in employer payments into anti-fraud programs at the state Department of Insurance and at district attorneys’ offices throughout the state.
Both fees take effect at the start of 2009 and come on top of fee increases for 2008.
The fee will go to pay for an electronic adjudication system and for a $13 million loan to the Division of Occupational Safety and Health.
The dollar amount of the fees will depend on the size of the employer and whether that employer is self-insured or pays a third-party insurer.
Dry Cleaners Get Break
Dry cleaners throughout the state are poised to get a break from state tax collectors: They won’t have to pay sales taxes to the state for most alteration services.
Under existing state tax code, dry cleaners do not pay sales taxes to the state, while tailors who alter new clothes do pay sales taxes.
But confusion had arisen over the years about how to treat alteration services at dry cleaners.
The state Board of Equalization last month approved some amendments to the tax code clarifying when dry cleaners must pay sales taxes on alteration services.
In its clarifying statement, board staff had determined that the businesses do not have to pay sales taxes to the state if alterations are a small part of their income.
But if dry cleaners derive more than 20% of their revenue from alteration services, then they must pay sales tax on those services.
Fine is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Business Journal.
